Escaped goat slain by police

The Twin Cities are significantly safer after an escaped goat was gunned down by police, the Pioneer Press reports.

The caprine menace escaped from a meat processing plant, marauding the mean streets of South St Paul, Minnesota, before being dispatched by an officer with a 12-gauge loaded with buckshot.

Police Chief Dan Vujovich defended the officer’s decision to use a shotgun (rather than, for example, a meat cleaver or hand grenade).

“I also think that if there was a situation where a goat did injure somebody, there would be more of an outrage of why we didn’t take more aggressive action when we had the opportunity,” Vujovich continued, before perusing the menu of a local Jamaican restaurant.

Controversy surrounds the goat’s demeanour. Concord Fresh Meat employees claimed the animal was so agressive that it could not be persuaded to return to its pen. St Paul resident Glenn Boche, on the other hand, describes a much more circumspect animal. He witnessed the goat contemplating Christmas reindeer figures in his yard, perhaps wondering when the hell Boche planned to take his decorations down.

In addition to expressing disgust at the bloody entrails left at the scene, South St. Paul residents feared their beloved Oreo, a law-abiding goat who has lived locally for some years, might die in a cruel case of mistaken identity. Happily, Oreo still browses the verdant slopes of Minnesota unmolested.

The escaped goat had been at large for ten days before it was finally brought to justice.